samfels27 Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Does the US have anyone who would stand up like Gary Lineker?
The farcical idea that sports and politics don’t mix has once again been shaken to its cardboard foundation with what’s been going on in the UK with Gary Lineker and the BBC (every time I hear or see “BBC” I can’t help but shout it like Austin Powers during the end credits of the first film, but tha...

Patrick Kane made me love and hate the Blackhawks
Everything just slowed down....

Baseball arbitration is even dumber than you think
The idea of arbitration for determining a baseball player’s salary has never sat right with anyone, other than maybe the front offices that get to save a few hundred grand here and there. There was a time when a few scribes would keep a scoreboard, and some still do. But the concept of two sides try...

Besides Aaron Rodgers, what other sports figures could use a darkness retreat?
With the news that Aaron Rodgers has emerged from his darkness retreat and will soon regale the people with the tablets he has produced, and certainly not the tablets or whatever else he definitely did not take while locked away by himself in obsidian, it got us to thinking who else could use some t...

Mallory Swanson can win the World Cup on her own, and she may have to
It is certainly a wonderful place to be, and a comment on what the USWNT has built over generations, that they can win three straight games over three decent-to-good teams in the SheBelieves Cup, conceding only one goal, and the overriding emotion is still more apprehensive than swagger. That is the...

Some MLB owners are ready to pick a fight with other MLB owners that they’ll take out on the players and fans
For as much worship as billionaires seem to get around here, and the runway they receive to shape our society to benefit them more and more, they are a cranky bunch. There’s always more money to be made, money they’ll never know what to do with, there’s always someone else to fuck over, and as it se...

Real Madrid simply cannot be destroyed
Most every time it’s happened, when Liverpool are up 2-0 at Anfield within a game’s first 15 minutes, especially on a European night, and the stadium is coming loose with noise and the team is swarming, teams tend to fold. That kind of atmosphere once folded Lionel Messi’s Barcelona not so long ago....

MLS doesn’t know what fans want
It tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Major League Soccer that A) the season starts in five days and you likely didn’t know that, and B) with only five days to go is when the league actually finalized what the playoff system for this season will be. That’s right, teams didn’t kn...

The Toronto Maple Leafs load up for their first-round exit
The Atlantic Division in the NHL was already a hell gauntlet. With the Boston Bruins suddenly turning into a team of frost giants that can skate (then again, it’s probably likely frost giants could always skate, given the conditions in the Jotunheim), it’s only become more so. It’s just three teams ...

No one cares about batting practice
I get it. In a lot of the country, it’s that part of the winter where it seems like it might never end (though it’s been quite mild here). The charm of spring training, whatever anyone tells you, is merely seeing the sun and warmth (though it was quite cold in Arizona recently). When the games start...

Mercedes Moné should have left WWE a long time ago
If you were like me, and god help you if you are, and you needed some sort of wrestling cleanse after WWE barfed up WWE things on Saturday, then Mercedes Moné came to your rescue late in the night. Mercedes made her return to the ring in NJPW’s Battle In The Valley in San Jose, wrestling Kairi (the ...

Get to know your new MLB rules
Leather is popping, grunts from a mound are being emitted, and GMs are already coming up with lame excuses in the sun — it must be spring training! Pitchers and catchers have reported in Florida and Arizona, and very soon there will be actual games played. They won’t count, of course, and will be ac...

I don’t know why I trusted WWE to do anything differently
Let’s start by being complimentary. It’s a new thing for me but I’m getting old and trying to evolve before my cholesterol count gets me. Thanks to the work that Sami Zayn and Roman Reigns have put in over the past six months, what is usually a run-of-the-mill PLE, Elimination Chamber, rose to the l...

Maybe blowing it up is the right call
About six weeks ago, I came here to lament how whenever one thing went wrong for a team, in any sport these days, the immediate call from fans and media alike was to simply blow things up. We have become so attuned to teams either being contenders or driving themselves into the dirt to start over th...

Arsenal blinked
Arsenal had passed most every test this season. There’s still a hint of wonder/confusion at their place atop the Premier League. While improvement was expected from their fifth-place finish last season, to run through the league for the first half of the season as they have come out of nowhere. What...

You’ll be shocked to hear THE Ohio State University teaches THE wrong thing
A pretty disturbing case came to a close in Columbus, where two former OSU football players, Amir I. Riep and Jahsen L. Wint, were acquitted by a jury of the rape and kidnapping of a 19-year-old student. The case seemed to hinge on a video of the alleged victim giving consent after the fact, even th...

The White Sox want you to know they’re just dumb, not evil
One of MLB’s biggest problems, and it spreads to other leagues as well, is the amount of buck-passing that seems to take place when there’s a serious issue. Whenever there’s someone like Mike Clevinger being investigated for domestic abuse or something else awful, a team is waiting for the league to...

It’s time for our yearly 'Don’t buy Carolina Hurricanes stock' column
It comes from a place of heartbreak. It’s hard to not become smitten with the Carolina Hurricanes. They play fast. They have a rabid fanbase. They have a lot of players that are easy to like. They have a coach in Rod Brind’amour who’s happy to explain things to fans and isn’t a complete meatball (he...

The NBA asked us to watch basketball that made load management a priority
At least the NBA, unlike some of its sporting league counterparts, keeps its CBA negotiations mostly under wraps. They’re going on right now, as both owners and players have the option of opting out of the current agreement by March 31, which would end the deal on June 30. One of the things to leak ...

Here's what you need to know as the Champions League returns
It only feels like the Champions League is late in returning for its knockout stage, but this is the normal time of year. What isn’t normal is cramming a World Cup in between the group stages and the knockouts, which makes it seem like this season has already gone on forever even when most leagues a...